


Vicious

by unbirthdaydance



Series: The Gamp Mandate [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Bad Decisions, Bad Parenting, Discussion of Abortion, Drama, Dubious Consent, F/M, Female Voldemort (Harry Potter), Forced Bonding, Forced Marriage, Genderswap, Marriage, Marriage Law Challenge, Marriage of Convenience, Misogyny, Moral Ambiguity, Past Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Pregnancy, Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter), Revenge, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Violence, amoral Voldemort, unlikely feminist icons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 01:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbirthdaydance/pseuds/unbirthdaydance
Summary: In the mid-fourteenth century, a deadly plague devastated the British magical community. The Wizard’s Council of the time reacted by passing a law which required all witches to marry, in order to increase the population and prevent future plagues from decimating the country again.This law has withstood protest and challenge for six hundred years. But its most serious trial will arrive in the form of a young witch from a Muggle orphanage, a girl destined for greatness and hampered only by this one foolish law.Lord Voldemort will not be condemned to a life of marriage and children. She has higher ambitions, and she will achieve them.The Gamp Mandate doesn’t stand a chance.





	Vicious

**Author's Note:**

> in which I attempt to make a wild premise somewhat believable, or at least entertaining.
> 
> more is in the works for this 'verse, though life is rough so updates may be slow. tags will be added/updated as necessary, and quoted lyrics are from Halestorm’s song ‘Vicious’.

** **Chapter One: ** ** ** _ **Mistakes** _ **

* * *

_what doesn't kill me makes me vicious_  
_I'm not gonna break, I can take_  
_all that you can give_  
_this is survival of the sickest…_

* * *

> The Gamp Mandate was one of several laws instituted by the Plague Council of 1351. This particular session of the Wizengamot was convened during a time of great crisis for wizarding Britain, a terrifying era in which a people accustomed to living into their hundreds were dying by the dozen in their twenties and thirties. Several rules regarding public safety and emergency funding for the healers’ guild were implemented by the Plague Council, but the legislation did not stop there. 
> 
> It was felt that merely preserving the lives of current witches and wizards was not enough. In order to ensure that such a disease never threatened the Isles again, the population had to be increased. The birth rate had to rise. There had to be more witches and wizards in existence to survive and carry on. 
> 
> The Gamp Mandate was the Council’s answer. It ordered all witches to be married and living in the house of their husband by one of two deadlines: either their seventeenth birthday or upon conceiving a child, whichever came first. These marriages were to be sealed with a bonding charm modeled on serf-enslavement magic to ensure fidelity and fertility. 
> 
> The Mandate quickly became embedded in local culture, and its only amendment for over six centuries was a small change in 1482, which permitted extensions of the birthday deadline to the completion of a witch’s final year at Hogwarts, and clarification on the status of widows and divorcees. Although legal enforcement of the Mandate had relaxed somewhat by the dawn of the twentieth century, the social norms it encouraged were still very much present in wizarding society. 
> 
> It was not until 1951 that the Mandate was formally stricken from law as part of the Riddle Reforms… 
> 
> _\---A History of Magical Marriage, Clara Davies, published 2002._

* * *

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_  
_December 1944_

Fourteen wizards and one witch stand in a circle, all of them with hoods raised to cover their faces. In the middle of the circle, hemmed in by a square of stolen chicken-wire, are six rabbits. Five of the furry creatures are pressed up against the wire, shaking. The sixth is twitching and flopping around on the cold stone floor, emitting horrible noises of pain.

Eleven of the wizards shift nervously, finding it difficult to control their instinctive revulsion at the sight of the screaming, suffering rabbit. Two stare at the creature in fascination, aroused rather than repelled by its agony. One wizard squints in concentration, wand clenched in a shaking, white-knuckled hand, as he struggles to control the _Cruciatus_ curse.

The witch watches with a blank expression, interested more in the reactions of the wizards than in the suffering of the rabbit. Pain is enjoyable, certainly, but it is only a means to an end. If this lot is to follow her on her path to glory, they must learn to control their reactions to such suffering.

It is telling that none of them have mastered the _Cruciatus _yet_._ The three sadists tend to overdo it and accidentally kill their animal victims. The other eleven can still barely bring themselves to cause more than minor pain to the rabbits.

Weaklings, all of them. The witch is careful to disguise her scorn, but she feels it nonetheless. This lot thinks they can follow in Grindelwald’s footsteps and restore pureblood values to society. At this rate, they’d be lucky to restore the hair to a rat’s tail. True, the Unforgivables are incredibly difficult magic for a group of teenagers who’ve yet to pass their NEWTs, but any true crusader _must_ be able to wield the tools of the trade.

The witch herself has no trouble casting the Torture Curse. She’s been able to cast all of the Unforgivables since she was fifteen, and her circle of followers knows it. This is the only reason they follow her: she is more powerful than they are, more intelligent, more charismatic, her bloodline older, descended as she is from Slytherin himself. She is _better _than them, and they all know it.

They wouldn’t dream of kneeling to a Muggle-raised girl, otherwise.

“Excellent, Avery,” she says at last, once her latest pupil manages to vary the intensity of the curse over the span of a few minutes. He releases the contorted rabbit and steps back: breathing hard, his face slick with sweat. “Would anyone else like to try?”

Mulciber steps forward, breathing fast and eager.

“If I may, my lord?” he says, not quite daring to meet her eyes. “I would like to try - in fact, I’d like to see if I can go further, and practice the Killing Curse too - ”

A sudden tension descends over the waiting circle. The witch sighs. Of course this was coming.

“Your clumsiness with the Cruciatus makes it just as good a murder weapon as the Killing Curse,” she says, in the cold, scornful way she’s learned from years of imitating pureblood accents. “You can’t even hold the Torture Curse on a living subject without losing control; what makes you think you’d be able to master the most _powerful_ of the Unforgivables?”

“I was the first to master the Imperius curse when you taught it to us,” says Mulciber, undaunted. “And if I’m good at killing with the Cruciatus, wouldn’t I also be good at killing with the real thing?”

The witch fights back another sigh. There’s no _subtlety _in this lot. None of them comprehend the immense amount of willpower it takes to snuff the lights out of another living creature. A sadist’s joy in pain doesn’t help with the Killing Curse, because it kills painlessly. The desire to end life must be strong and focused, and she doubts any of these spoiled children have that will in them. They are not like her, forged as she was in pain and rage.

Well. Let them try and fail. It will only make them admire her own prowess more.

“Very well,” she concedes, allowing a trace of amusement to infect her voice. “Go ahead and try, if you like.”

Some of the others shift uneasily, sensing a trap. The rest lean forward, watching eagerly as Mulciber brings his wand up, his body tense in concentration. The witch watches, bored. Mulciber might love hurting things, but he knows nothing as yet of _killing_.

“Avada Kedavra!”

A jet of green light strikes the shuddering rabbit. It makes a horrible noise and begins to breathe a bit raggedly. It is, however, still breathing.

Mulciber lowers his wand. His face beneath his hood is white, and his muscles are trembling, drained. He must have put quite a bit of power into his failed curse for it to have weakened him so. The witch brushes a casual tendril of Legilimency across the surface of Mulciber’s mind, encouraging his need to kneel and rest. He promptly sags to his knees, shaking.

“So, you see, not as easy as one might think,” she says conversationally. “There is a _reason_ I am teaching you to master the _Cruciatus_ first. It will teach you the power and control you need to cast the Killing Curse without immediately draining yourself.”

That, and they need to learn to kill the messy, hard way before they graduate to the deadly Unforgivable. Impersonally wishing to end life has nothing on the intimate experience of closing your own fist around a fragile throat and watching the life expire from your victim. Only the emotional high of the latter will fuel a truly successful Killing Curse.

She glances down at the wheezing, injured rabbit. Mulciber had done rather well to damage it so thoroughly.

“Would anyone else like to try?” she asks, and waits a beat. When no one dares answer, she smiles and raises her wand. “Very well. Never fear, my friends. You’ll get your chance one day soon. _Avada Kedavra!_”

The green light flows out of her wand and into the rabbit, which instantly falls still, all sounds and signs of life extinguished. She holsters her wand again and looks around the circle, noting with pleasure how they are all wide-eyed with awe at her casual use of the curse which Mulciber is _still_ recovering from casting.

“Nott,” she says, singling out a slender wizard across from her. “Come forward; let’s have you try the _Cruciatus_ next.”

* * *

The session ends well, with everyone making improvements in their use of the Torture Curse. They disperse in ones and twos, careful not to be caught out and about as a group. Their leader has warded the dungeon where they conduct their meetings well, but one can never be too careful.

She exits last, a pang of sorrow coursing through her as she locks and wards the door behind her. Inside, she is someone great, someone powerful and feared. Out here, she is an excellent student, of course, popular among her classmates and respected by her professors, but never quite able to escape the taint of _Muggle-raised girl._

A tall, brawny figure steps toward her, dissolving out of the shadows. Riddle turns toward it, unsurprised and unimpressed by this attempt at startling her.

“Avery,” she says, coldly. “What do you want?”

“Everything.” His eyes are too intense for her liking; she narrows her own at him, suspicious. “I want - you were _brilliant_ in there, you know.”

“Of course I was.”

“I mean, _really_ brilliant.” He steps closer, and she can smell the sweat and cologne on him, a rather unpleasant mix. “Listen, Voldemort - ”

“Stop that,” she says sharply, because _that name_ should not be spoken aloud in an unwarded space where anyone might be listening, and especially not in _that_ tone of voice, tinged as it is with irreverent sexual hunger.

Sometimes she regrets her ability to read minds. The thoughts of teenage boys are really quite despicable.

Avery takes her warning and backs up a step, raising his hands palms-out in defense.

“Hey, sorry,” he says, only somewhat apologetically. “Just, you know, I think you’re amazing and all that. You’re not like any other witch out there.”

He’s still staring at her as if he’d like to eat her, with that aggressive desire that half the male students and staff seem to regard her with. She knows full well that she is attractive, of course, and isn’t above using that fact for her own ends, but that doesn’t mean she _enjoys _it. On the contrary, she resents it very much.

One day, when she achieves her goal of becoming a powerful, fearsome Dark Lord, she will arrange to become fantastically ugly, so that everyone who gazes upon her will see her as _herself_, rather than lips, breasts and pretty dark eyes.

Probably the only thing preventing Avery from falling to his knees with a bonding proposal now is the fact that he’s slightly more terrified of her than he is aroused, which is as it should be.

“Look,” he says, when she doesn’t respond to his nonsense. “I know you aren’t, well, interested in courting or anything, but once school ends, you’ll _have_ to bond with somebody. It’s required.”

She knows this, of course. All witches must accept a husband by the end of their time at Hogwarts and begin their contribution to society by breeding the next generation of witches and wizards. It’s been the law for centuries.

She, of course, has no intention of doing any such thing, her current plan being to vanish off into a foreign country for a decade or two, transform into a being of indeterminate gender and definite immortality, then return and lead a glorious rise to power.

It would be most unwise to let any of this on to Avery, however.

“I’m aware of the law,” she says coolly. “I assure you that my future is well-planned out.”

He steps forward again, eyes blazing, undaunted this time by her scowl.

“So someone’s made you a proposal, then? And you’ve accepted?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“I know, but I - _I_ want you!”

The words ring out into the empty stone corridor, a childish echo skipping across the flagstones. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he flushes red.

“I will make my own decisions, thank you very much,” she says sharply. “If you continue to question me further…”

She lets her voice trail off ominously. Avery swallows, very aware of just how capable she is of punishing him if he does not show her the respect she demands. Someone capable of casting the Killing Curse at fifteen is not to be taken lightly.

“I don’t mean to question you, my lord,” he says carefully, slipping back into titles of respect. “Just… if you’d ever care to explore your options, I’m willing, if you know what I mean.”

She can sense him fighting back a leer at these words. As much as she itches to curse his insolent mouth shut, something about his phrasing does catch her attention. _Explore your options…_ it’s not as if this has to be a _commitment_. She has always enjoyed acquiring knowledge, and she has very little knowledge of sex. It’s simply never interested her.

If it’s such an important component in the psyches of her followers and enemies alike, however, perhaps she ought to investigate it. It could do no harm to fool around with Avery, just this once. If he does anything to her she doesn’t like, she is more than capable of making him infinitely regret it.

“I’ll think about it,” she says finally, and marches off before her desire to wipe the shocked smirk off his face overcomes her new-found curiosity.

* * *

She decides to go through with it perhaps a week later. It’s ordinarily difficult to find comfortable private space in this warren of a school, but she is Head Girl and has her own room this year. It’s easy enough to temporarily disable the spells which prevent boys from entering the girls’ side of the dorms, and so Avery slips into her room in the dead of a Thursday night, unnoticed by anyone else.

They experiment. Avery has clearly done this a time or two before, while she never has, but she’s always been a fast learner. Once they’ve both spent themselves, she kicks him out, already irritated by the soft ardour in the way he looks at her.

Sex, she decides, is physically very pleasant, but inclined to make fools of otherwise reasonable people. She has no desire to experiment with it again.

Satisfied in her conclusions, she heads off to shower.

* * *

Avery is insufferable for the next week or two, until he finally seems to realize that their night together holds no real significance for her. Then he settles back into his role as disciple, though with a bitter undertone that worries her. Still, he doesn’t question her leadership and remains involved in her secret meetings, the ones where she teaches her followers forbidden magic and instills in them the revolutionary drive they’ll need later, once she’s become a full-fledged Dark Lord ready to take on the wizarding establishment.

She stays at the castle for the winter holidays, the way she always does. She has no desire to return to the filthy Muggle orphanage she grew up in, or to impose on the hospitality of one of her followers, whose parents will eye her askance: this upstart girl who has inexplicably won the devotion of their sons.

She falls ill over the holidays, a minor illness that manifests as headaches, nausea, back cramps. She feels unreasonably tired and often light-headed. As the holidays end and classes start up, she begins to have mood swings, plummeting from inexplicable glee to vicious despair at the slightest of triggers.

She checks herself for curses or other signs of malicious magic. Nothing. Perhaps she really is sick, then - and _that_ cannot be good, given how rarely witches and wizards succumb to illness.

Once February begins and her cycle still hasn’t come, she heads to the Hospital Wing, convinced she’s suffering from _something_, even if she isn’t sure what. The female school nurse, Madam Davis, listens to her catalogue of symptoms and then ushers her to a cot and draws the privacy curtains closed.

She sits down as bidden, alarmed. The look on Madam Davis’s face does not bode well. Maybe she’s sicker than she thought.

“Miss Riddle,” says Davis, in a horrible, gentle sort of way. “If you would hold this?”

The nurse draws an orb out of her pocket, one with runes carved all over its smooth surface. Riddle knows what it is, of course: a Symptom Sphere, which healers use to diagnose illnesses. She doesn’t know which runes Madam Davis has activated on this one, but takes it anyway. It immediately lights up in her hands with a warm, soft blue glow.

“Well, then,” says the nurse. Her thin mouth is pinched thinner, and her mental aura reeks of mixed sympathy and disapproval. “That’s clear enough.”

“What is it?” Riddle demands, handing the orb back. “Am I ill? Can you fix me?”

“_Fix_ you? My dear girl, haven’t you - but of course not, you spent your summers with Muggles - Merlin only knows what _they _know - and we don’t teach such delicate subjects here - ”

“_What_ subjects?”

“My dear, you are, well, _with child_.”

The nurse pronounces these words oh so delicately, as if they might sully the air itself. Riddle stares at her. _With child_. Could that one night with Avery have done this to her? It had to have, it’s the only time she’s ever been sexually active.

She should have known better than to dive into investigation without researching her subject beforehand. What an unforgivably foolish mistake to make.

“You’re very early on,” says Davis. “When was your last cycle?”

“About a month ago,” answers Riddle, still too shocked to really process that this conversation is happening to her. “I think.”

“So you’d be no more than a month along, then,” Davis says, nodding. “You’ll be showing by the time school lets out, however, so you’d better bond with your young man soon. You’re of age, fortunately, so the only real scandal will be conceiving before wedlock - but if you bond soon enough, I doubt anyone will notice a month’s discrepancy in the birth date.”

Riddle’s head is reeling. Bond? With _Avery_? She’ll do that when hell freezes over.

“I’m not bonding with anyone,” she says sharply. “And especially not before school ends. I still need to take my NEWTs, and they don’t let you finish Hogwarts if you’re married.”

“You’re a smart girl, you could take your NEWTs now and pass,” says Davis encouragingly. “You’re required to marry by June this year anyway; what’s a few months sooner?”

“I’ll think about it,” she says, to shut Davis up more than anything. “What do I do about - _this_?” She waves at her still-flat stomach. “Do I take anything, or - ?”

Davis immediately dives into the how-to’s of magical prenatal care. Riddle listens attentively, because memorizing which foods to eat and which potions to avoid is easier than dwelling on the huge, fucking _mess_ she’s gotten herself into now.

* * *

The real consequences of her actions become clear later, once she’s holed herself up alone in her room to _think_.

Her fragile rapport with her pureblood disciples will fall apart if she scandalously continues school like this: pregnant and unbonded. Her followers only obey her because she’s the Heir of Slytherin, the last descendant of a pure bloodline, ready to carry on that line’s crusade against the encroachment of Muggleborns. They are not so much loyal to _her_ as they are to her rants on _protecting and defending traditional pureblood family values_.

No, she’s encouraged their traditionalist bent too much for them to accept her situation now. Her own rhetoric has backfired. There’s just no way a good pureblood girl would ever conceive a child out of wedlock and then, sin upon sin, refuse to marry after that. That smacks of something progressive and Muggleborn, the antithesis to all her own demagoguery.

She might have _only just_ convinced that lot to overlook her gender, but there is no way they’ll overlook her betraying the very values she’s encouraged them to believe in. She’ll lose their loyalty for sure, and then what? Without a core of avid disciples, how is she to take on the wizarding world and win herself power, fame, immortality?

Her thoughts race on. Does she _have_ to have the baby? Riddle is aware, vaguely, that abortion is an option. If she gets rid of the child - which was only a mistake, anyway - then nothing has changed, her problems are solved, she will be _fine_.

On the other hand, this child is like her, a descendant of Slytherin himself. In a world where marriage and bloodlines are powerful currency, owning the heir of Slytherin is a valuable asset to control. Riddle might never conceive another child, especially once she begins her planned immortality experiments. Can she afford to give up that potential political weapon?

If she doesn’t give it up, won’t she lose everything anyway?

* * *

In the end, the decision is taken out of her hands.

Riddle doesn’t know how Madam Davis discovers that it was Avery she’d had her one-night stand with. Perhaps Avery had been bragging again, and gossip had filtered its way through the grapevine. In any case, the nurse takes it upon herself to encourage her charge’s ‘young man’ to do the right thing and bond his pregnant girlfriend.

Only Riddle isn’t his girlfriend, and she has _no intention_ of bonding him.

They have a fight in the Great Hall. Avery instigates it here, cleverly, knowing that if he’d provoked her while alone, she would have continued to refuse him. In the Hall, in full sight of everyone, she will be forced to concede to him, or else lose her moral authority among her traditionalist disciples.

“I heard the news from Madam Davis,” he says casually at dinner, as if they are discussing nothing more interesting than the weather. “We’ll need to set a wedding date, and I think we should apply for an extension to your schooling. You’re _brilliant_, Riddle, and you ought to sit your NEWTs.”

“_Wedding_?” says Mulciber, head whiplashing over. “What, don’t tell me you two are really - Will, I thought you were _joking_!”

“We are _not_,” Riddle begins icily, only for Avery to _talk right over her._

“Oh yes, haven’t you heard?” he says airily, loud enough for half the table to hear. Riddle is mine, and we’re expecting an heir by the end of the summer.”

A clamor of voices starts up - some disapprovingly horrified that a child is already expected before any bond has formed, some shocked that _Head Girl Riddle_ is in such a scandalous situation, some laughing that of course that known flirt _Avery_ would have landed ice queen _Riddle, _of all people - and a blur of white, focused rage drowns out Riddle’s common sense.

She needs to shut Avery down, now. She needs to convince everyone that he is lying, and she needs to make him _suffer_ for his brash words.

And she is, of course, clever enough to do all that at once.

“How _interesting_ that you’re bringing up marriage _now_,” she says, her voice cold enough to freeze ice itself. The table hushes, listening. “If I recall correctly, _you_ were the one who refused to bond me two months ago, when we first discussed this. Well, _William?_” Her lies hiss out, tinged with honeyed venom. “Perhaps now that you’ve lost interest in your other conquests, you’ve finally remembered your honor.”

The Slytherin table is dead silent. Riddle stares hard at Avery, noting with vicious pleasure how ashen his face has become. In one fell swoop, she’s turned the tables by accusing _him_ of refusing to honorably bond a witch he’d gotten pregnant, solely because he was more interested in sleeping around. This puts the blame on the situation squarely on his shoulders, rendering her a blameless victim of his callousness.

“You’re lying,” he says finally, in a strangled sort of voice. Betrayed rage swirls about his head, burning brightly enough for Riddle to sense with only the smallest stroke of Legilimency. That’s fine; she’s more than furious herself. “You - I didn’t - ”

“Why would _I _lie?” she asks, still honey-sweet, still driving the knife home. “You know my commitment to our way of life. The last thing I want is to be left on my own, with a child my suitor insisted we create to continue his family line. Of course, then he went and found himself another witch or three- ”

“I did _not_!” shouts Avery. “There’s only you - there’s only ever _been _you - ”

“Liar,” she says coldly. “You abandoned me, and now you have the nerve to talk about _weddings_ \- ”

“Shut up!”

He jumps to his feet, butter-knife clutched in one hand, eyes wild. Riddle, deliberately, flinches. Nott springs up and drags Avery back a step as a chorus of gasps rise up from the table. Threatening your own pregnant girlfriend is a line no decent wizard should ever cross.

“_What_ is going on here?”

The Transfiguration professor, Dumbledore, descends upon them. Avery drops the knife. Riddle keeps her head bowed, not daring to look Dumbledore in the eye. That bastard will see right through her if she’s not careful, and ruin all her efforts to turn everyone’s ire onto Avery instead of herself.

“Nothing’s going on,” says Abraxas Malfoy smoothly from the other side of the table. “A minor argument, that’s all, sir.”

“Hmm.” Riddle doesn’t look up, but she can just imagine the suspicious, disapproving frown on Dumbledore’s ugly face. “Well, settle down then.”

“Yes, sir,” Nott says, earnestly.

They stand frozen until Dumbledore sweeps off. Then Avery turns on his heel and storms out of the Hall. Riddle relaxes a fraction and forces herself to eat as if nothing has happened, aware that although the buzz of conversation is rising again all around her, no one quite dares to look her in the eye.

* * *

It is her word against Avery’s. Either she is refusing to behave like a decent, well-bred pureblood girl, or else Avery is a lying, cheating cad. There isn’t any proof one way or another, just _he said, she said_, with the whisper of gossip as judge and jury.

Riddle knows that Avery will win this battle of allegations eventually. He is an upstanding son of an ancient pureblood line. She is nobody and nothing, a stubborn girl from a Muggle orphanage, and her motivations cannot be relied upon the same way Avery’s can.

It will be a slow, gradual thing, but eventually they’ll come to believe him, and not her. Riddle knows this. She hasn’t spent seven years over-analyzing the nuances of pureblood society for nothing. It’s only a matter of time. Already people are beginning to look at her with doubt in their eyes, to say _but would he really have done that to her? He’s such a nice boy, otherwise…_

It doesn’t help that she’s made no moves to find another suitor in the wake of her falling-out with Avery, or even to resolve their dispute. Surely, if she were as interested in behaving like a proper witch as she claims, she would be doing _something_ to find herself a husband, especially with the end of her seventh year approaching, when all witches by law are required to submit themselves to a marriage bond.

She’s stopped holding secret meetings. None of her followers regard her the same way any more. Either they hold with Avery and regard her as a lying bitch, or else they see her as a a fragile victim, an ordinary girl to be protected rather than feared. The loss of her secret authority infuriates her far beyond her wrath at Avery. If she could, she would kill them all for their disloyalty - but she can’t. A lifetime in Azkaban for murder is not a fate she wants to court.

She’d worked _so hard_ for her position as leader of the revolution, rising lord, master of the dark arts. Now she has nothing and no one, thanks to that one night’s mistake.

Even getting rid of the baby wouldn’t restore her lost authority at this point. In fact, getting an abortion now would only make things worse, given the way society looks down on the termination of a potential new magic life.

It’s useless. _Everything_ is useless.

She takes to avoiding everyone, spending her hours free of classes and Head Girl duties hiding in the library, researching travel books. Once Hogwarts lets out, she’ll flee: run to some foreign country where the laws are less misogynistic, where she can live in _peace_. There, she’ll continue her transformation into a glorious, immortal being. Once she’s achieved that, she’ll change her name and return. No one will recognize her. They’ll accept her as leader _then_, even if they won’t now.

A pity the name _Voldemort_ is ruined for her now. It was so beautiful, so _clever_. Now she’ll have to think of some other way to rid herself of her filthy Muggle father’s name.

In her worst moments, doubt seeps through her. Even if they don’t recognize her face, what if they recognize her words? What if, even after her return years later, they remember her and scorn her? What if this is all for naught?

What if she is resigning herself to permanent exile? The idea of fleeing forever stings her pride. She is Lord Voldemort. She does not _surrender_. She will not be beaten by some spoiled pureblood boy with more dick than brains. She will _not_.

But what else can she _do_?

* * *

Dumbledore calls her to his office one rainy Monday afternoon in March. Riddle still isn’t showing much - her loose school robes will likely hide her thickening abdomen for quite a while - but she _feels_ miserably more pregnant, achy and moody and still horrifically nauseous. A private conversation with her most hated professor is _not_ something she feels up for right now.

“I’ll be blunt,” says Dumbledore, once she enters his office and comes to a halt just beyond the doorway. He isn’t sitting at his desk, but standing by one of his bookcases, fiddling with an odd silver instrument. “I’m aware of your social predicament, Miss Riddle.”

“Most people are,” she snaps, unable to help the sharp edge to her tone. “My situation’s been the talk of the grapevine for a month now, sir.”

“Yes,” says Dumbledore. “Well.” He lets go of the device and steps back, regarding her through half-moon spectacles. “Unlike most people, I know you. I am fully aware that your ‘innocent victim’ act is just that - an act. No, don’t protest,” he adds, holding up his hands when she opens her mouth to object. “You don’t fool me, Miss Riddle. You’ve learned to cloak yourself in sweet words and smooth talk, but I remember the child who tortured her fellows and kept stolen trophies to gloat over.”

“I’m different now,” she lies, though it’s difficult with the rage constricting her throat. Until now, Dumbledore has been content to watch her from a distance, always suspicious but never daring to openly confront her. The closest he’d come was last year, when she’d opened the Chamber and accidentally killed Myrtle, and the only reason he hadn’t pushed for her expulsion then was because he hadn’t had _proof_.

“Are you, though?” He continues to stare at her with those horrible piercing eyes, his face hard and set. “I doubt Myrtle Warren would agree.”

“It wasn’t me who opened the Chamber, sir,” Riddle says earnestly. “It was Hagrid. I caught him.”

“Or so you say.” Dumbledore cuts her off again before she can continue to protest. “No, don’t argue. I’m not here to trick you into confession. I only want to make sure you understand that I _know_ you, and as the one who brought you into the wizarding world, I see it as my duty to contain you.”

She does not like where this is going.

“Contain me?”

“Yes, Miss Riddle, contain you. I’ve heard rumors, whisperings and the like, of a rising Dark Lord. The name Voldemort has come up once or twice, and it’s easy enough to put two and two together. I might not have enough proof to turn you in to the authorities, but I know what you are planning, and I oppose that in every way.”

This is not news to her, though it is alarming that rumors of her true name have reached _Dumbledore’s_ ears. She remains cautiously silent, and waits for him to go on.

“I am also aware that you are losing your grasp on the young radicals you’ve been courting,” Dumbledore continues. “You yourself will have realized this also. I am prepared to offer you a way out, a compromise that will suit both our needs.”

Now _that_ is unexpected. She frowns.

“A compromise?”

“Yes. You want power, do you not? You’ve chosen the path of secret soldier for the pureblood cause, but that’s not the only cause that exists. You could lead another faction to victory and still achieve the glory that you seek.”

It isn’t only glory she wants, but there’s no point in telling Dumbledore that. Riddle waits, eyebrow raised. If he’s trying to recruit her to the anti-Grindelwald effort, he’s clutching at a lost cause.

“I know you have suffered from the difficulties of being a witch and Muggleborn in our society,” Dumbledore continues, earnestly. “Think of the fame you would obtain as the first of your station to attain true political power. Think of how your name would be immortalized were you to, say, become our first female Minister for Magic. Is that not a dream to your liking?”

It isn’t, not really. There’s not nearly enough violence in establishment politics to satisfy her. Riddle isn’t interested in climbing up the social ladder by licking the boots of those above her. She would much rather burn everything to the ground and rule by fear alone.

On the other hand, her original dream of revolution has just been thoroughly squashed, and squashed by the same sort of people whom Dumbledore is currently trying to turn her against. Riddle doesn’t care one bit about the rights of witches and Muggles, but she _does_ care about hurting those who’ve hurt her, and she’s practical enough see the advantages in allying herself with the enemy of her enemy, as it were.

“You see?” says Dumbledore softly. “It appeals to you. But the road won’t be easy, and for a young unmarried mother, it might even be impossible. I can provide a solution to that.”

Riddle is perceptive enough to see through Dumbledore’s web of words to his true intentions.

“You want me to marry you,” she says flatly. “You want me to marry you, bond with you, and wait like a dutiful wife for you to install me as puppet Minister three decades from now, when I’m washed up and under your thumb.” Her lip curls into a sneer. “Well thanks, Professor, but I’d sooner jump off a cliff.”

“I have a hard time picturing you as ever ‘washed up and under my thumb’,” Dumbledore says dryly. He sighs. “Miss Riddle, I offer this marriage as an _compromise._ You will receive the social credibility needed to enter politics, and I will receive a certain peace of mind in knowing that I’ve prevented you from embarking on a life of evil deeds.” He pauses, adds: “I also have no wish to live in the limelight. You might be upholding my ideals, Miss Riddle, but the power would be your own. I would only be a shadow partner, if we are successful.”

“I have a hard time picturing you as a ‘shadow partner’,” she throws back at him. “Don’t lie, Professor. You want to control me, and you’re offering me an impossible dream as bait.”

“Would you rather marry Mr. Avery, then?” Dumbledore counters. “Or let the Ministry assign you a husband? Or flee the country, never to return, having lost all pride and dignity? I’m offering you a way out that is _not_ defeat. Understand this, Miss Riddle: I do not want to control you because I desire you, but because I _fear_ you, and the terrible acts I fear you will otherwise be driven to commit.”

“I’ll find some other way,” she snaps, hating this whole conversation, the growing feeling of being trapped, of being backed into a corner. “I’ll get rid of the baby, and then - ”

“Your choices would still be the same,” Dumbledore says gently. “Your reputation among the purebloods you sought to control is already destroyed. The law is clear: you must either submit to a bonding by the end of your seventh year at Hogwarts - sooner, if you are with child - or leave the country. Think about your choices, Miss Riddle, and decide.”

She glowers at him. He watches her for a moment, silent and wistful, then dismisses her.

She clenches her jaw and stalks out, robes swirling about her heels and rage swirling inside her head.

* * *

What decides her, in the end, is Avery.

Because their previous dinnertime confrontation had worked out _oh-so-well_ for him last time, he tries the same tactic again. Riddle wonders distantly why he thinks he can corner her now, when he’d failed so disastrously before.

“So,” he says, leaning over Malfoy to speak with her. “A good, decent witch like you must have decided on a husband now, since you’ve refused to bond with me. Well, Riddle, who is it? Or have you decided to accept me after all?”

The unspoken social threat is clear: _if you’ve chosen no one, then you are the liar, the slut, the whore we all despise, and I will be vindicated. _Riddle swallows a bite of potato, and puts down her fork.

She has no good options at this point. It’s either submit to Avery, submit to Dumbledore, or concede defeat and run away. And so it is simple spite that drives her decision now, spite and rage. It is Avery who’s gotten her into this position, and it is _Avery_ who will suffer the consequences, not her.

“Oh, I’ve chosen,” she says coolly. “A very nice wizard has come to my aid, after my _original_ choice abandoned me. I haven’t wanted to cause drama by announcing it, you see. Unlike some, I do not enjoy shouting about my personal affairs at the dinner table.”

Avery flushes, stung. A number of the students near enough to hear glance at each other, amused. Riddle feels a distant pleasure that even if everyone now despises her, they still at least respect her sharp tongue and razor wit.

“Well, Riddle?” says Nott, interested. “Who is it?”

She hesitates only a moment before answering, before committing herself to the fate she’d never wanted, bound not only to a wizard, but one whom she hates, and who hates her.

But at least this way, she will be able to make Avery and all her other former, faithless followers suffer.

“Professor Dumbledore has kindly offered to bond me,” she says, and watches with detached glee as shock ripples through the faces all around her. “He’s already applied to let me finish the school-year, since I’m such an excellent student and only have a few months left, anyway. Since I have so few other options due to the _disgraceful_ conduct of my original suitor, it was quite a relief to find respite in such a powerful wizard.”

Avery’s face is a study in horror. Dumbledore is the antithesis of his crowd, the man all the old pureblood traditionalists have long railed against. He is the face of the anti-Grindelwald faction in the Wizengamot, and had been the subject of Riddle’s own rants against authority many a time.

The idea that she is now forced to resign herself to _Dumbledore_’s control must sting Avery quite a bit. On the other hand, her acceptance will have cemented her in political opposition to her former following. Willing or not, a wife must stand with her husband, and she is now inextricably tied to the enemy of her former disciples.

That’s fine. They betrayed her with their doubts and their suspicions, and now they will pay for that betrayal. Her vengeance will be slow, but it will be painful, and complete.

* * *

She goes to see Dumbledore that same day, knowing that she ought to update him on events as soon as possible. He lets her into his office with a knowing expression on his face, and she hates him already, the smug _bastard_.

“Spite is a much lesser motivation than I expected from you, Miss Riddle,” he remarks, first thing. “But if it brings me the outcome I want, who am I to complain?”

“You spoke of compromise,” she snaps, in no mood for games. “I’ll uphold your damn agenda, if you help me destroy that lot. I want to watch them _burn_ for the way they’ve treated me.”

“Removing the old pureblood stranglehold on politics will only work in my favor,” says Dumbledore, thoughtfully. “Very well. So long as you don’t venture into anything illegal, I’ll support that goal.”

Fine. If she needs to do anything illegal, which she will, then she simply won’t tell him. There are a lot of secrets she’ll have to hide anyway, her first two Horcruxes among them.

Maybe her only Horcruxes, at this rate. If she isn’t going to involve herself in anything immediately physically dangerous like open revolution, perhaps she won’t need quite so many countermeasures against mortality.

“I’ll uncover your secrets, you know,” Dumbledore murmurs, watching her with keen blue eyes. “This must be the most traditional of bonds between us, to fulfill my goal of containing you. You will be _mine_, once we have sworn our vows, and I will expect everything from you.”

She curls her lip at him. “For someone so interested in destroying pureblood values, you’re awfully set on upholding their traditions.”

“Only in your case, Miss Riddle. You ought to take that as a compliment.”

She does, but that doesn’t lessen her loathing for him any. On the other hand, she hates Avery and his ilk more. And, though she’ll never admit it, she also hates _herself_ for being foolish enough to make the one mistake that had ended her dreams before they had a chance to begin.

“Come here,” says Dumbledore, and she stalks haughtily up to him, her ears catching the sound of the door locking behind her.

She is only somewhat prepared when he tilts her chin up and kisses her. It is not at all like kissing Avery, who’d kissed her with an unsettling mix of awe and sexual hunger, all schoolboy eagerness and desire. Dumbledore kisses with calm confidence, with authority. His beard scrapes against her skin, and his mouth tastes like sweet peppermint.

She is trembling when he releases her, body shaking with something that is either rage or need or grief, it’s impossible to tell. He looks thoughtfully at her, then cups her face in his hands and draws her in for another kiss, slow and sweet.

Riddle closes her eyes.

_I can always kill him later,_ she consoles herself, and twines her fingers into the soft fabric of his cloak.


End file.
